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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'What a waste.',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/07/12.jpg" alt="A sledgehammer  destroying a poor, defenceless laptop" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion posts for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Although Aristotle was Plato&apos;s mentor, we see a huge difference in Plato&apos;s vision than Aristotle&apos;s.
			This may be attributed to Plato becoming embittered by the death of Aristotle.
			Whatever the case though, let&apos;s look at the differences in their teachings.
		</p>
		<p>
			Plato believed the masses were unfit to attain knowledge.
			They were to be kept in the dark; even lied to (Levin, 2012).
			They were to be deceived about themselves even, given wild stories about their own biology and where babies come from.
			How did he expect that knowledge not to get out?
			People will figure out how their bodies work.
			You either teach them beforehand, or they&apos;ll get unexpected surprises later.
			Of course, Plato wanted to eliminate such surprises, but in the absence of knowledge, this would be an impossibility.
			Plato&apos;s way denied human nature and sought to reshape it into something it&apos;ll never be.
		</p>
		<p>
			Aristotle, on the other hand, didn&apos;t seek drastic changes in society.
			He instead sought to explain what we are and how what we are is natural to us.
			Instead of trying to destroy human nature and create something else from the remains, he seemed to believe that we are what we&apos;re meant to be, and that what we are is therefore fine as it is (Zarri, 1948).
		</p>
		<p>
			Plato&apos;s way would never work.
			Even Plato himself admits it (Levin, 2012).
			For it to work, you&apos;d need to strip us of what makes us who we are.
			Human nature would win out and destroy Plato&apos;s would-be balance.
			On the other hand, Aristotle thought that nature perfectly designed us; that we&apos;re not a freak accident.
			He thought nature had intent (Zarri, 1948).
		</p>
		<p>
			If I had to choose between the two views, I&apos;d go with Aristotle.
			Plato&apos;s utopia seems more of a dystopia, and besides, no one even seems to think Plato&apos;s vision is functional.
			Not even Plato himself.
			I&apos;m also highly opposed to censorship and the hiding of knowledge, both of which are vital for making Plato&apos;s society work even if just for a short while.
			That said, I don&apos;t fully agree with Aristotle either.
			We&apos;re not the perfect beings Aristotle seems to imagine us as.
			We&apos;re not perfectly designed.
			Nature works via a trial and error process known as natural selection.
			A bunch of mutations happen, and the bad ones are weeded out, leaving the good ones.
			That&apos;s not nature having intent as to what to make us, or make anything else!
			That&apos;s having a bunch of accidents and seeing what works out.
			We&apos;re flawed.
			We&apos;re just less flawed than those that died out.
			Even so, we&apos;re only less flawed from a survival standpoint, not necessarily also an ethical standpoint.
		</p>
		<p>
			(Before you ask, this discussion assignment said to make <strong>*two*</strong> posts!
			My discussion on Saint Thomas Aquinas is the next main post down.)
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h3>References:</h3>
			<p>
				Levin, M. R. (2012). Plato&apos;s Republic and the Perfect Society. Retrieved from <a href="https://academic.udayton.edu/LawrenceUlrich/Leadership370/Plato%27s%20Republic%20and%20The%20Perfect%20Society.pdf"><code>https://academic.udayton.edu/LawrenceUlrich/Leadership370/Plato%27s%20Republic%20and%20The%20Perfect%20Society.pdf</code></a>
			</p>
			<p>
				Zarri, J. (1948, July 16). Aristotle&apos;s Theory of the Origin of the State. Retrieved from <a href="http://scholardarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Aristotles-Theory-of-the-Origin-of-the-State-DRAFT-2-PDF.pdf"><code>http://scholardarity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Aristotles-Theory-of-the-Origin-of-the-State-DRAFT-2-PDF.pdf</code></a>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Saint Thomas Aquinas&apos; view of a good society is rooted in adherence to law at four basic layers: eternal law, divine law, natural law, and human law.
			Each of these layers is said to be less authoritative than the last.
			Human law is less authoritative then natural law, natural law is basically a simpler version of divine law encoded into our own instincts, and divine law is Yahweh (the Christian god)&apos;s rules given to us based on divine law.
			Divine law, the most authoritative and important, is unknowable (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2006).
		</p>
		<p>
			Being an atheist, I cannot agree with this viewpoint, because I disagree about something fundamental: the existence of two of these layers.
			However, I do agree that we have certain law-like desires and tendencies encoded into our beings, I just believe these have evolved through natural selection.
			Groups of humans that were more likely to engage in murder, for example, would have killed themselves out, not passing that tendency on.
			Those that had a natural aversion to harming others of their own kind faired much better, so those aversions were passed on.
		</p>
		<p>
			What we can deduce then, is that human nature is mostly a collection of traits that were useful to our ancestors, either for survival or reproduction.
			The key thing to keep in mind is that these traits were useful to our ancestors; not necessarily us, who inherited them.
			Aversion to murder is still very useful, but attraction to fatty foods isn&apos;t, for example.
			Fats, while necessary for survival, used to be in short supply.
			Now that we have an abundance, such attraction leads to obesity.
			Another good example is the instinct to raise a family.
			It&apos;s what kept the human population from dying out in the past, but now we have <strong>*too many*</strong> people.
			We&apos;d be better off if we cut back on child-creation a bit for a while, as would the planet as a whole.
			Because of my differing view on where natural law comes from (evolution instead of divine implanting), I don&apos;t believe human nature to be ultimately good.
			We are what we are because of our history, not because it&apos;s what&apos;s right.
		</p>
		<p>
			Human law builds on top of natural law.
			Saint Thomas Aquinas says that human law should be broken when it contradicts natural law (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2006), basically because natural law is more pure and good.
			It&apos;s a coding of divine instruction.
			When we view natural law as a product of natural selection though, things change a bit.
			Natural law is no longer seen as inherently good, and it certainly isn&apos;t pure.
			Without religion to back it, Saint Aquinas&apos; view doesn&apos;t hold water.
		</p>
		<p>
			Personally, I think we need to use logic and reason to determine what&apos;s right.
			Unjust human laws exist.
			Terrible things exist in human nature.
			I don&apos;t think there&apos;s a one-always-triumphs-over-the-other situation here.
			We should do what we think is right, even when it goes against human law, but also even when it goes against our natural tendencies.
			Sometimes, doing the right thing even means going against both.
		</p>
		<p>
			(Before you ask, this discussion assignment said to make <strong>*two*</strong> posts!
			My discussion on Plato and Aristotle is the next main post up.)
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h3>References:</h3>
			<p>
				Constitutional Rights Foundation, A. (2006). BRIA 22 4 c St. Thomas Aquinas Natural Law and the Common Good - Constitutional Rights Foundation. Retrieved from <a href="http://crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-22-4-c-st-thomas-aquinas-natural-law-and-the-common-good"><code>http://crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-22-4-c-st-thomas-aquinas-natural-law-and-the-common-good</code></a>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="EUGLUG">
	<h2>$a[EUGLUG] meeting</h2>
	<p>
		Tonight&apos;s meeting was ... interesting.
		First, I learned that Walt Disney used to discriminate against people of other religions when hiring.
		Only people of two different variants of Christianity were employed by him.
		Back then, religious discrimination in the workplace was legal.
		Honestly, I thought learning that&apos;d be the highlight of the night, aside from using my time there to add some overdue fixes to my <code>blockprotectnodes</code> mod.
		But I was wrong.
	</p>
	<p>
		The person whose garage we meet in apparently didn&apos;t like the laptop of one of the members.
		They said that if that member destroyed their own laptop, they&apos;d be allowed to take this newer, larger, faster laptop in exchange.
		They were reluctant, of course.
		They and I seemed to be the only ones concerned with the destruction of a perfectly good item.
		I mean, I got the impression that it was old, but it could&apos;ve at least been donated to the recycling centre.
		It was a 32-bit machine, so they wouldn&apos;t&apos;ve refurbished it, but they&apos;d&apos;ve broken it down into its component parts and properly recycled the materials.
		And of course, that ignores the fact that the machine was still in working condition and could&apos;ve been used as a spare, or used for some other purpose.
		Anyway, they couldn&apos;t bear to break the thing, but they allowed the other members to break it.
		The one that offered the laptop as well as one other member smashed the thing with a sledgehammer, then threw it away.
		What a waste.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
